"Oh, those tricky coaches"

Hmmm.... just read over the final college football Coaches' Poll that is released to the public. Interesting, insightful, inquisitive.

All those "I" words and a downright travesty.

The Harris Interactive poll has to be rated the worst prong of the horrid BCS - four voters voted Michigan No. 4!! - but the Coaches' Poll is right up there, reveling in BCS ignominy. When it came to picking No. 2 in the final, everything-is-on-the-line poll, I can guarentee you that most of the 61 coaches who voted made their picks based not on who they considered "better" (I know, it's a confusing word), but on "other things."

Such as what conference their team plays in...

Every SEC coach voted for... drumroll... the Gators. Every Big Ten coach voted for... another drumroll... the Wolverines. Except Jim Tressel (who, so diplomatically, refused to vote) and Illinois' Ron Zook, who just happened to be Florida's coach a few years back.

Hmmm....

Such as if they played Florida or Michigan during the season...

Every coach of a team that lost to Michigan who voted... chose the Wolverines. Even Ball State coach, Brady Hoke, whose team lost just 34-26 at the Big House backed the Wolverines (maybe to help him schedule another big-money game at Michigan in the future).

Notre Dame's Charlie Weis even went as far to say that he chose Michigan No. 2 to “show respect to the team that beat us.”

Hmmm...

Such as if your team is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, you're probably not voting against Florida. Only three southern coaches voted Michigan No. 2: Troy's Larry Blakeney, Texas' Mack Brown and South Florida's George O'Leary.

Now, let's examine these anamolies. We know that Brown's Texas team played Michigan in the Rose Bowl two years ago, escaping with a one-point win after Lloyd Carr refused to use his timeouts (obviously, Brown owed Carr a favor). But to be more serious, Brown's teams have played against the Big Ten three times in the last three seasons, beating Michigan and Ohio State and losing to the Buckeyes this year, and he realizes how good the league is.

The motive for Blakeney and O'Leary to pick Michigan No. 2 is more difficult to understand. Both coaches have always worked in the South. O'Leary's team even played Florida this season, losing 42-0. Maybe these guys are actually coaches who voted based on who they thought was "better" (that word, again).

But those are just two coaches.

Hmmm...

Such as your team played a non-conference game against the Big Ten or SEC this season. Washington State lost to Auburn, 40-14, in the first game of the season - and Auburn went on to give Florida its lone loss - so, obviously, without giving second thought, WSU coach Bill Doba gave the Gators the nod. The University of Colorado, another (somewhat) northern team, fell to SEC foe Georgia, so, naturally, coach Dan Hawkins went with the Gators. To be balanced, I must point out that the University of Connecticut defeated Indiana, which lost to Michigan... and UC coach Randy Edsall took Michigan No. 2.

I'm not going to bombard you with any more statistical analysis. The patterns are not difficult to identify. Forget filling out March Madness brackets, next year how about filling out final Coaches' Poll brackets! I bet it'd be easy to 90 percent right when attempting to identify each coach's top two or three (depending on how many teams the almost inevitable BCS controversy involves).

The Coaches' Poll has become a joke. There's no denying this. And to think that the computer polls used to get most of the public's anger.

I won't even get into the blasphemy that is the Harris poll. All I needed was one example to prove its voters' incompetence. According to the "New York Times," George Lapides, a Memphis sports radio talk host, said he thought Florida would lose to Michigan if the Wolverines and Gators faced off, but that didn't stop him from moving the Gators from No. 4 to No. 2 after Florida's SEC title game victory over Arkansas.

“I liked the idea of a conference champion playing a conference champion,” Lapides told the New York Times. “I think that’s more appealing than a rematch. I think you try to pick something as appealing as possible.”

Right. So the BCS has come down to this. Coaches voting for their conference reps, other coaches voting for the team that beat them in September, and clueless voters basing their choice on what matchup is "appealing."

Yeah, it's needless to say this system needs to be scrapped.

ASAP.